I figure if I were to ever have my own lifestyle brand, it would be something between Ralph Lauren (specifically RRL) and John Varvatos; with a little bit of J. Peterman thrown in for good measure.
But if I had a lifestyle brand, I wouldn’t be hawking a brand new Chrysler. I’d probably pick something from their parent company, perhaps an Alfa Romeo 8c… or a Jeep Forward Control snowblower.
History lesson: This was the truck that was specifically targeted by President Johnson’s “Chicken Tax.” After the bill’s ratification in 1964, these trucks pretty much disappeared overnight. The purpose of the Chicken Tax was to protect American auto makers, namely Ford, who had lost a significant number of US truck sales to West German automakers. In an ironic twist of events, Ford has to navigate through a series of loopholes in the bill in order to import their own Transit Connect line of commercial vans (which are made in Turkey, and disassembled/converted in Baltimore).
